


Terms and Conditions

by kethni



Category: Veep
Genre: F/M, Making Up, Post-Season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 01:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1761801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was infuriating. No matter how much she tried to concentrate she couldn’t block out his voice. </p>
<p>She checked her door was shut. </p>
<p>She checked his door was shut. </p>
<p>She could still hear his voice. It was bad enough during the day when the West Wing was full of people but now, early in the morning, she could practically hear every word he said. </p>
<p>Sue tried to carry on, determined not to let him get to her.  But then she was on her feet and throwing open his door. </p>
<p>‘Would you please shut the hell up, Sir?’</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terms and Conditions

**Author's Note:**

> A tiny 'making-up' ficlet post ep 3x10 New Hampshire.

It was infuriating. No matter how much she tried to concentrate she couldn’t block out his voice. 

She checked her door was shut. 

She checked his door was shut. 

She could still hear his voice. It was bad enough during the day when the West Wing was full of people but now, early in the morning, she could practically hear every word he said. 

Sue tried to carry on, determined not to let him get to her. But then she was on her feet and throwing open his door. 

‘Would you please shut the hell up, Sir?’ 

He stared at her for a long moment before speaking into his phone. ‘I’ll call you back,’ he said, and thumbed off his cell. ‘What is your problem now?’ 

‘You. You are my problem. Your voice is breaching my aural space and it needs to stop.’ 

Kent sighed. ‘I’m just sitting, quietly, minding my own business.’ 

Sue snorted. ‘You were talking so much I couldn’t hear myself think. Didn’t your mommy tell you to let other people in the conversation get a word in?’ 

Kent took a deep slow breath. She bet he was counting to ten. ‘Isn’t it tiring being so relentlessly hostile?’ 

‘You give me good reason to be.’ 

‘That’s not even…’ he trailed off and slumped back in his chair. ‘Never mind. You win.’ 

Sue folded her arms across her chest. ‘What do you mean?’ 

‘I mean you win. I surrender. You win our breakup. Congratulations.’ He shrugged. ‘I literally do not have the energy for this, Sue. Not physically and certainly not emotionally. We are all dealing with a huge amount of stress and I have this Kerr thing hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles.’ 

‘Stop firing people, Kent, you’re terrible at it.’ 

‘You’ll forgive me if I consider your judgement of my skill set somewhat impaired since you seem to consider my very existence an affront.’ He sighed and rubbed his eyes. ‘There was a time when this,’ he gestured at the two of them, ‘was an oasis in the Sahara, now it’s a break in Antarctica.’ He shook his head. ‘Do you want me to apologise for having the temerity to exist after you discarded me? My being in this room, this tiny, cramped room, is purely in order for me to do my job. It isn’t an insult or an attack.’ 

‘I didn’t discard you,’ Sue said quietly. ‘You stopped calling.’ 

‘You wouldn’t answer my calls.’ 

‘You should’ve tried harder.’ 

Kent shook his head. ‘Sue is always right,’ he said. ‘There’s no point in trying to explain is there?’ 

Sue pursed her lips. He looked beyond exhausted. ‘What do you want?’ 

‘I would settle for polite indifference,’ he said heavily. 

She shut the door behind her. ‘I didn’t ask what you would settle for, I asked what you want.’ 

He picked up a pen from the desk tidy and spun it round his fingers. ‘What do you want?’ 

Sue shook her head. ‘I asked you first. For once take some initiative.’ 

‘That always works so well.’ He stared at the pen. ‘I want things the way they were before… before everything started going wrong.’ 

‘With me?’ It sounded hard. She had been aiming for level. 

‘Yes. I still find you an exceptionally vibrant and attractive woman.’ He was watching the pen spin. ‘I want, if nothing else, for you to stop treating me as though you despise me.’ 

Sue sighed. ‘Don’t be melodramatic, Kent.’ 

He glanced up at her. ‘I never claimed to be skilled in conversations of this nature. I apologise.’ 

‘You’re very good at saying you’re sorry.’ 

Kent sighed and dropped the pen. ‘I don’t know what to say to that.’ 

Sue pulled out his guest chair and sat down. ‘It is tiring. I’m weary of it.’ 

‘Nonetheless you continue to look amazing. I look like a dishrag.’ 

She looked away to hide the tiny smile that was threatening to escape. ‘Ass kissing Selina cannot be good for your health.’ 

‘Oh, I guarantee you that it isn’t.’ Kent was warming to his theme. ‘I think that every day a little bit more of my will to live is being drained from my body, drip by drip. In a month I will have transformed into Mike.’ The pen sketched shapes in the air as he waved his hand. ‘In a year I will have been morphed into Ben. Ben.’ 

‘Those would both be unfortunate.’ 

‘Absolutely, we only need one of each of them.’ 

‘If that,’ Sue said. 

Kent clicked the pen repeatedly. ‘When I told Selina that Hughes was resigning to take care of his wife, a man giving up his career to care for his desperately ill wife, do you know what she did?’ 

Sue thought about it. ‘Cheered?’ 

‘Close. She hid in a disabled toilet with Gary and collapsed in hysterics.’ 

‘Laughter?’ Sue reached out and took the pen from his hand. 

‘It was frenzied,’ he said, looking up. ‘Maniacal. I don’t even want to know what the hell was going on with Gary but he was almost as bad. I think he had tissues shoved up his nose.’ 

‘Wow.’ Sue crossed her legs. ‘There’s an image.’ 

Kent scanned her face slowly. ‘I miss this,’ he said quietly. ‘I miss us talking.’ 

‘I miss you,’ she said. 

His eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘Oh.’ He looked at his hands as if suddenly realising that the pen had gone. ‘I miss you as well.’ 

Sue waited until he was looking at her. 

‘Still my turn to talk?’ he asked. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘But you haven’t told me what you want.’ Kent shifted in his seat. ‘Suggesting that you and your ex remain friends always seems to be a doomed undertaking. It would be nice if we could at least be civil.’ 

Sue shook her head. ‘That isn’t what I want.’ She watched him deflate. His shoulders settled into a hunch. ‘I want you to stop settling, to stop accepting “the least” of anything, and I want you to stop expecting me to make all the running.’ 

‘What?’ he asked blankly. 

‘I believe I was quite clear, Kent,’ she said. She knitted her fingers together. 

‘You would be willing to consider a potential renewal of… pleasantries?’ 

‘I would.’ She watched him struggle to process the question. He really was tired. ‘Would you?’ 

He sat up straighter. ‘Affirmative, I absolutely, definitely would.’ 

‘I hate relationship conversations,’ she said. ‘But we need to discuss acceptable compromises and necessary changes.’ 

‘Call it a negotiation of terms and conditions,’ he suggested. 

His hand was on the desk. She touched his thumb with her fingertips. ‘When and where.’ 

‘Tonight? At my place?’ He caught her fingers as she stood up. 

‘Fine.’ She bent down to kiss his cheek. ‘Don’t get gushy on me, Kent.’ 

‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ 

Sue returned to her desk, sat down, and permitted herself a smile. 

The End


End file.
